Iraq says Iranian airlines allowed 40 daily flights to Najaf, except Mahan Air

Iraq permitting routine Iranian carrier access to Najaf is a normalisation measure tied to Shia pilgrimage traffic, a channel that has historically expanded and contracted with the state of bilateral relations rather than with any commercial logic. The carve-out of Mahan Air is the substantive signal: that carrier has long been sanctioned over alleged Revolutionary Guard-linked activity, and exemptions or exclusions of named airlines have typically served as a low-cost way for Baghdad to accommodate Tehran while staying aligned with US sanctions enforcement. Episodes of this kind tend to matter less for the flights themselves than for what they reveal about Iraq's balancing act between its two patrons, since aviation and border arrangements have often been early indicators of which way the government is leaning on sanctions compliance. The mechanism to watch is enforcement rather than the headline: whether the exclusion is policed in practice, and whether sanctioned-entity workarounds such as wet leases or code-shares emerge. Follow-ons are any US Treasury or State response, parallel moves on land crossings and energy waivers, and similar treatment of other designated carriers. Market transmission is limited absent escalation; crude and regional risk premia have historically reacted to ruptures in this relationship, not to incremental administrative steps of this sort.